The Will to Live On: This Is Our Heritage<br>by Herman Wouk<br>HarperCollins/Cliff Street, 320 pages<p>

More than forty years have passed since the publication of Wouk's classic "This is My God," which called Jews back to traditional observance. The novelist touches upon similar themes in this gracious companion volume, focusing specifically on the notion of legacy: of the Holocaust, of Jewish literature, and of the Diaspora. The idea for the book was born when his friend Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, and its overtones address issues of persistent anti-Semitism. The writing is beautifully simple, with Wouk calling upon the many Jewish literati and leaders he has known throughout the last half century, including Rabin, David Ben-Gurion, and Israeli novelist S. Y. Agnon. Though the book contains great humor, Wouk has some serious critiques of the state of American Jewry today, which, he says, has lost its identity to both intermarriage and intra-fighting. Jews happily married to Gentiles will likely find Wouk's gentle jeremiad controversial, but most readers will appreciate his candid, forthright perspective.